


The Only One That Hasn't Left

by stultiloquent



Category: DCU (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics)
Genre: Character Study, Drug Addiction, F/M, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Multi, Other, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Drug Use, Translation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:28:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27187265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stultiloquent/pseuds/stultiloquent
Summary: A look at Roy Harper's life in 3 parts.
Relationships: Roy Harper & Oliver Queen, Roy Harper/Koriand'r/Jason Todd, Roy Harper/Waylon Jones
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	The Only One That Hasn't Left

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mashedbrain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mashedbrain/gifts).
  * A translation of [永不離去的唯一](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22350664) by [mashedbrain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mashedbrain/pseuds/mashedbrain). 



> I went looking for some Roy-centric fics the other day and stumbled across mashedbrain's affecting and emotional piece and just knew I had to share it with the English-speaking community somehow. Thank you for letting me translate this!

Roy Harper is lonely.

As a boy, he craved Oliver's approval. 

He wasn't taken seriously, so he convinced himself, if he couldn't lead the Green Arrow life, what's a little hedonism instead? It was the easier life to live, even.

It took only a little carelessness for him to fall into a back alley of depravity.

The day Ollie saw the needle in his arm, face thundering first with shock and then anger, Roy was scared shitless, a wave of cold sweat drenching him from head to toe - though whether that was from the drugs in his veins or simply the fear, he couldn't tell. Yet he heard chuckling in the back of his mind. It was a hallucination so real, he thought perhaps his yearning for Ollie really ran so deep as to conjure up imagined scenarios of being caught red-handed. Any way he'd have Ollie's attention, really, he would've accepted it. 

Then came the hot, stinging blow on his cheek, and he realised none of it was a hallucination.

He thought his teeth might've cracked against the floor. He propped himself up on his palms, just barely, his vision whiting out and his ears ringing. He glimpsed a few droplets of red, but couldn't comprehend a single word that came snarling out of Ollie's mouth.

Later, he told himself that it was probably something along the lines of "you should know better", and other meaningless bullcrap. But in that moment, he panicked. It really was Ollie. He wished he could know exactly the vitriol that was being thrown at him, wanted to touch and know for certain that the man was really standing before him. But his emotions were scattered, his muscles rendered useless by the drugs, and he couldn't grasp onto a single thing. He tried to splutter out an apology, but he couldn't make out Ollie's response, or whether Ollie had even heard him.

Time passed. It could've been minutes, could've been hours. All Roy knew was that when he was sober again, he was the only one left in the room.

Oliver had left. He had abandoned him.

As a teenager, he tried to pull himself together.

The same time every week, Killer Croc waited for him down in the sewers, listened to him as he muttered to himself and tossed the AA membership badge around in his hands.

On the occasions where his cravings got too much to handle, Croc would run a gentle, caressing hand down his back as he would a newborn baby while Roy curled up into a ball, sobbing. Then they would make love, gently at first, then gradually lose themselves to careless abandon.

He always found a kind of pleasure in it, pinned down like this, almost smothered by the larger body. Pain and bliss intertwined at the crest of his orgasm, sent all emotions and rational thought beyond the stratosphere, and he didn't need to ponder why he was sobbing, just needed to feel the hoarseness of his voice and the soreness of his swollen hole to know he was still alive.

Afterwards, he would look into those yellow eyes and find concern there every-time. But what some would call concern, Roy knew was just another form of disquiet. So he'd always known the nature of their relationship, and that this one-sided support was ever only going to be temporary.

The last day, they shared a parting hug as Roy updated him on his recovery, and that was it. Because that was where the crux of their relationship lay, the joy of being cared for when he needed it, and knowing that it had been real was enough.

There was no point in asking for more.

As a young adult, he yearned for a place to belong once more.

That he still held out a sliver of hope was a surprise even to himself. But that was how it was between him, Starfire, and Red Hood, united by the same unorthodoxy.

He ran with a different team, a long time ago. It didn't last, first because he fell short of his teammates' ideals and their splintering loyalties, then because he had lost all control. It was different though, with the Outlaws. They'd all failed to meet certain ideals, and so they found their own.

He really believed that they could've stood strong against any and all odds, as long as the three of them stayed together, worked on the battlefield together, shared warmth in bed together. As scarred, embattled companions with too many wants and needs between them that couldn't be put to words, they allowed themselves the space to give to each other, and receive comfort from each other. And Roy had never been more content.

But neither He nor She could let go of their pasts completely. Roy didn't understand, though perhaps he himself was the same to a certain extent. He could never forget the hurt of being abandoned, and they must have had their own baggage that made them afraid to take the leap. 

And the past that made them who they were today, that brought them together as a team, it was destined to break them apart in the end.

He wanted to say, _I wasn't lonely, at least I've had my partners._ But when he turned around and walked away from the corpse at his feet, walked away from Jason, his heart welled with sorrow.

He has had many others, but he has lost even more. He never sought for a replacement in any of them, always treated each and every one of them with sincerity, all so he could have a pillar to rely on.

None of it had ended the way he hoped for. He could only fight uselessly against this helplessness, so as not to drown beneath its tide.

Roy Harper is lonely.

The only thing that has always stayed with him is this loneliness. And the older he grew, the more he began to understand that this, perhaps, was true for everyone.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](https://stvlti.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
